Conceptual Design Study of a Rare Isotope Producing Assembly for the Proposed Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) Facility

摘要

This project was the focus of a Nuclear System Design course at the University of Tennessee. Its purpose was to identify and investigate useful design features for a rare-isotope-producing assembly to be used in a proposed new basic science accelerator facility named RIA. Although rare radioactive isotopes have been produced and used by other accelerators, the RIA facility will provide superior capabilities within the USA. The chosen "two-step target" configuration employs a deuteron beam at the defined facility limits of 400 kW and 1800 MeV to impact a heavy-water cooled tungsten target, thus generating spallation neutrons which stream radially through a surrounding uranium carbide shell to cause fissions. Analyses led to insights that the fundamental issues concern isotope extraction. Innovative methods were identified to overcome them and a design was proposed to show feasibility.